When the season began, the Brewers appeared to have plenty of outfield depth. That turned out to be true, but in the midst of all the attention focused on top-tier prospects and a highly compensated former MVP, an unheralded extra has stepped forward to fit right in.
Last season, Blake Perkins was a close outfield counterpart to infielders Owen Miller, Brice Turang, and Andruw Monasterio. He possessed excellent contact abilities but did not increase his strike zone. He played terrific defense, had great speed, and, unlike Turang, he hit a lot of fly balls. Unfortunately, he, like the Crew’s other three spare infielders, did not hit the ball hard.
Parkins’ average departure velocity in 2023 was a manageable 83.8 miles per hour. He did get the ball off the ground, but not in an effective manner. His Medium Trajectory rate (the percentage of hit balls with launch angles between 2 and 25 degrees, the most lucrative one-third slice in the league) was only 22.2%. Despite making contact at a about average rate each swing and drawing many walks, Perkins struck out more than 27% of the time. That’s because pitchers threw the ball into the strike zone against him. Perkins instilled no terror in hurlers, and as a result, he struggled to stay ahead of the ball and strike curve.
Parkins’s average exit velocity in 2023 was an unintimidating 83.8 miles per hour. He did get the ball off the ground, but not in a productive way. His Medium Trajectory rate (the percentage of his batted balls between 2 and 25 degrees of launch angle, the most valuable one-third slice league-wide) was just 22.2%. Despite making contact at a roughly average rate on a per-swing basis and drawing plenty of walks, Perkins struck out over 27 percent of the time. That’s because pitchers poured the ball into the strike zone against him. Perkins struck no fear into hurlers, and as a result, he struggled to stay ahead of the balls and strikes curve.
This year, everything is different. Perkins has traded some lift for more swing speed. He’s hitting the ball, on average, 88.9 miles per hour, an exciting jump that has boosted his isolated power by 32 points. Though his average launch angle has gone down, his Medium Trajectory rate is up dramatically, to 33.8%. That helps explain an increase of almost 40 points in his BABIP. He’s squaring the ball up much more often, which explains a substantial share of his improvement.
Perkins is chasing outside the zone a bit more often this year, but that’s part of a more aggressive overall approach. He’s also increased his in-zone swing rate from 54.9% to 58.7%, and specifically, he’s going after pitches in the lower half of the zone much more frequently.
Last year, he was concentrated on getting balls up in the zone, which resulted in him getting under the ball too frequently. It resulted in numerous mishits. In 2023, about 40% of his swings resulted in foul balls, with a lack of hard contact in play. As he’s decided to cover more of the zone, he’s exchanged some contact for more authority on contact, with the aforementioned exit velocity boost being most noticeable on lower-zone stuff.
